Leadership Development
T4T is not just an evangelism process, and not just a discipleship process, but also a leadership development process. The greatest need in the world is godly servant leaders. Everything rises or falls on leadership. Jesus poured his life into 3, 12, and 70 leaders, in that order of priority. They in turn reached the known world in the first century. T4T takes the leadership principles Jesus followed and taught and once again puts them into practice. Leadership is a set of learned behaviors. Any Spirit-controlled believer can learn to live out leadership behaviors. They start with love and faith. Can any believer not love or exercise faith? Can any believer not do and teach? Of course they can. IF they are willing and properly trained, every believer can become a fruitful leader. Will all do it? Probably not, because some are not willing and some are not trained. Some will become more dynamic leaders because of gifts of leadership, apostleship, evangelism, or teaching that they have. T4T offers training to EVERYONE. We cannot rule out anyone, because we are not God and we cannot see the end from the beginning. At the outset we do not know who will become a trainer and who will not. So in T4T everyone who is willing to be trained is trained. The leaders rise up like cream rises to the top of raw milk.
In T4T it is recognized that not all will become trainers. Similar to the biblical truth that all are not apostles, it is a reality that not all are trainers who start groups that start groups. But it is important that every person is appreciated, loved, respected and valued, regardless of how many they witness to or if they start a group. T4T is a way of finding and developing those who have it in them to become trainers, defined as those who start groups that start groups.
T4T is on the job training. T4T is apprenticeship. T4T is just-in-time training. A trainee learns biblical truth just in time to pass it on in his own groups. This is chain link discipling. Everyone has an upper link – the T4T group he attends, and lower links – the T4T groups he/she starts and leads.
How fast can a new believer learn, grow, witness, even start and lead a group? A whole lot faster than you may think he can! There is no need to fear that. Every group starter has a mentor – the leader of the T4T group he attends. His T4T group leader is his coach, his cheerleader, his confidant, his co-trouble shooter, and his doctrine corrector. But more than that, his Teacher is the Holy Spirit, and his textbook is the Bible – the living and powerful Word of God, (Heb 4:12). I John 2:27 teaches us that all believers have the anointing, the Holy Spirit living in them. He “teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie….” The Apostle John inscribes here that “you have no need for anyone to teach you,” because the Holy Spirit takes the Sword of the Spirit and leads us into all truth. John 16:13. Twenty years of T4T practice, now in many nations, has proven that godly, faith-filled servant leaders are being developed and leading movements toward reaching their countries with the gospel.
The T4T process includes lots of leader retreats, where group leaders learn doctrine, theology, hermeneutics (Bible interpretation), ethics, morals, church leadership, and any other topic needed to help them become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, and developers of their followers to be the same.
T4T builds families because it equips parents to disciple children in the basics including evangelism, follow-up, discipleship, and leadership development.
2 Tim 2:2 was written by one apostle to another, and that is the primary application. Yet we can glean principles from the verse to be applied to all believers.